Hello, all. I have been scheming up an idea for an OP-XY with the hardware essentially doubled, a more professional, studio quality version that doesn’t come off as a toy to the haters, having 1/4” audio i/o too. I wanted to get a show of hands who thinks this would be a good thing for TE to make? It would pretty much be a full Octatrack but the TE version.. is that necessary to produce? Do people crave a little extra features and hardware like me, at the very slight sacrifice of a little bit of the portability aspect?
One of these versions is the exact same as the original with a bigger screen and double the encoders, and minus the built in speaker.
The other version has an extra row of buttons that could be used to eliminate some shift functions, like dedicated undo and redo buttons, or to add an OP-1 style unsynced tape track, for example
No, it’s not necessary. It’s already studio quality and significantly increasing the size or hardware would only push it’s price into range that would be tougher for artists to afford
I personally wouldn’t mind losing the speaker or portability if it would change the instrument for the better. Also wouldn’t mind a different i/o configuration but I’d add another usb port before anything else
XY is the least toy like thing TE produce so if someone still hates it for that, let em. Their loss
try norns if that’s what you want or pair norns with xy for io and digital tape
or maybe s4
also if a modernized octatrack is what you want (for legitimacy or other reasons)
the slicing firmware update to digitakt mk2 makes it a better option than augmenting the xy
I would like to buy that version 2 if I could see 32 steps per pattern. But I think I wouldn’t be able to afford it.
I’d like the same type of upgrade for the OP-1f so we could have 8 tracks.
I like these kind of dream mock-ups. It’s fun to wish.
I was thinking about using it as a second sequencer row but for the aux tracks.. but I think adding features and reducing shift+ functions would be more useful. In the first version, the bigger screen allows a full view of all 64 steps in a track.
I own an S4 and love it, but it lacks synths, a keyboard and a sequencer.. I own both devices and the biggest difference in my opinion is sound design versus song building, there’s little crossover besides sampling.
Norns is lacking even more features, I’m dreaming of a hardware expansion, not a hardware reduction.
Elektron boxes may be the way to go, and would certainly compete in terms of price to functionality ratio, but not in terms of experience.. I specifically bought the XY because TE makes the experience the most enjoyable compared to all other manufacturers, in my opinion.
I agree
I see. Ok I think reducing shift functions would be good idea.
I have been looking into a Digitakt 2. Are these Elektron boxes difficult to use?
i’m sincerely baffled by this debate about 1/4 audio jacks. i got into music using smaller machines, the majority of my cables are 3.5mm headphone jacks. its the exception for me when i need to buy a 1/4 inch jack for some new piece of gear.
the sound quality is the same. the size is just physically different. i hear people say that 1/4 is more robust, harder to break… but… what are people doing with their gear where you’re snapping 3.5mm connections!!! never in my 20 years of making music have i even ever come close to this once.
My XY is the only piece of gear that has 3.5mm exclusively, I mean even my interface is exclusively 1/4” and XLR, so it means I have to buy a variety of splitters and adapters to make it work with other gear. I think TE is the only company I’ve bought from that never uses 1/4” jacks and it’s just annoying haha not like I’m breaking cables or anything.
I’ve only used Model:Cycles and Oktatrack (very briefly) and my experience was very frustrating, it wasn’t intuitive at all, for me. The S4 however, was an almost immediate understanding, it took very little time and manual reading to just get started using it the way I wanted to. Everyone is different though. Elektron, as far as I know, is notorious for having a steep learning curve.
With the XY having so many shift functions, it’s easy for me to forget them when I don’t use it consistently. Making hidden and button-combo features available as a direct hardware access would vastly improve the speed of making a track, in my opinion, even for heavy users.
ok yeah i get you then! i guess generally i hear this debate in terms of “pro” and sound quality or something. over the years i’ve owned a tenori-on, several volca’s, ios devices with headphone jacks, computers with audio and headphone jacks, all the TE stuff, kaossillators, i don’t know, just a ton of gear and all of it has been 3.5mm on my end. i’ve had to get adapters for my norns, chase bliss pedals, etc. so i totally hear you on the whole adapters game…
Yeah I’m sure there is something for the professional sound engineers to nitpick about jack types and sound quality, but it’s not something I’ve ever noticed or need to care about. It’s just annoying that there isn’t a universal type of audio cable. Even midi has a huge variety of jack types, and adapters are especially necessary for connecting new gear with old. Anyway, I used to use a lot of the smaller devices back in the day too and 3.5mm jacks was all I ever needed, but I’ve been crossing over to larger and more expensive gear over the years and they all use 1/4”, I wish the trend of micro gear would end and hopefully TE steps it up in the future. Price doesn’t matter to me if the quality and functionality are on point.
Anyway, rant over!
The guitarist version. I also play guitar but I am relieved to ,not to have to use jacks.
Give me minijack.
I want the og opxy this homermobilversion gives me nightmares of being back in the dark 90ies.
And yes I also have the tenori on. And Roland boutiques and TE things. And system500.
If the OP-XY wouldn’t have speakers, I wouldn’t have bought it.
The TE built in speakers are useless if you want a track/mix to sound good.. just a waste of space. I could mix better on my phone speakers.
No one is mixing with it, but it’s great for jamming out melodies or just basic ideas when you don;t want to use headphones. I use the speakers on my gear for that kind of thing all the time.
They’re good to use as a reference as well. If it sounds like complete shit out of that speaker then your mix probably has some issues.
I suppose, guys, but like.. why not just use headphones or external speaker? I feel like it’s a waste of hardware space to have one built in, given the already severely confined space on the XY/OP-1. That space could be of more use functionally, even just a dedicated bpm encoder. This is my opinion as an amateur product designer.
You really need a dedicated bpm encoder? The speaker is part of the charm of these devices. You can pick it up and start using it without having to plug in anything.
I make music a lot in the woods and up in the mountains, and hearing the birds and the wind in the trees can not only be calming but inspiring. If I’m wearing my IEMs to make music, it can be an isolating experience. Fine for a lot of things, but if I just want to play some melodies based on my environment then it’s not always the best tool for the job.